The Erosion of NZ Property Rights

• Local authorities have instituted a policy of claiming rights over private property in the interest of biodiversity (Significant Natural Areas or SNAs).  Regional councils are falsely claiming authority from the RMA, and the policy is informed by sources which are not revealed.
• The government has now introduced measures to legitimise SNAs and further facilitate control or acquisition of private land in the name of biodiversity, in the form of the proposed National Policy Statement on Indigenous Biodiversity and the proposed Biodiversity Strategy.
• The Urban Development Bill gives local authorities sweeping powers to enforce the acquisition of private urban land on behalf of developers.
• The government has signed the UN Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration  whose manifest purpose is to facilitate unchecked migration. Mass immigration will justify high density urbanisation and the egregious provisions of the Urban Development Bill, and is likely to undermine the culture of home ownership.
• The new measures introduced by government repeatedly flag a greater say by iwi on (non-Maori) private property, though without details.
• Authorities are flagging zoning decisions to be made on ludicrous claims of dramatic sea rise.

The NZ inspiration for the GWRC’s Policy Statement appears to be the Proposed National Policy Statement on Indigenous Biodiversity (2011), which has no legal effect: it was announced by the Minister for the Environment in early 2011, but ‘was not progressed due to a lack of stakeholder agreement on its content […]’

The statement recommended:

• the retention of as many ‘elements’ as possible
• the retention of existing vegetation, whether indigenous or not (but not including recognised pest plants), that provides habitat for indigenous species or seasonal food sources for indigenous species (i.e. every tree in Wellington)
• buffer zones
• corridors (‘ecological linkage’)
• ways to address the problem of private property.

The proposal was developed by the Biodiversity Collaborative Group, an environmentalist lobby group whose core members are all non-government organisations.

That proposal may have been rejected, but now an updated version has been presented for consideration. The new  National Policy Statement for Biological Diversity is intended to legitimise and strengthen the SNA policies of local authorities, which have no authority under existing legislation.  Like the SNAs and the failed NPSIB of 2011, the revamped NPSIB seeks to establish a policy of ever-increasing protected areas as the expensive of private homes.

‘The proposed NPSIB provides direction to councils on their responsibilities for protecting and maintaining indigenous biodiversity under the RMA.

‘The primary objective of the proposed NPSIB is to maintain indigenous biodiversity (Part 1.7(2) and (3) and Part 2.1 Objective 1 of the proposed NPSIB). Maintaining indigenous biodiversity requires, at the least, no reduction in:
a. the size of populations of indigenous species
b. indigenous species occupancy across their natural range
c. the properties and function of ecosystems and habitats
d. the full range and extent of ecosystems and habitats
e. connectivity between, and buffering around, ecosystems
f. the resilience and adaptability of ecosystems.’

The objective, however, is not preservation of biodiversity but restoration as far as possible to what is assumed to be the original state.

‘Native forests once covered about 80 per cent of New Zealand’s land area. About 65 per cent of our original native forest has been removed […].  Reversing the decline of indigenous biodiversity in Aotearoa New Zealand is a long-term policy objective.’ (p.12)

Again, the proposal repeatedly insists on the legal right of authorities to encroach on private land; again, it claims authority from the RMA:

‘The RMA is the key piece of legislation for managing New Zealand’s indigenous biodiversity outside public conservation land, including on private land’

Again, the  proposal cites no authority from within the RMA. ‘The RMA’s key provisions recognising biodiversity are outlined on the following page [14].’  These key provisions contain no reference to private land.

The Biodiversity Strategy

New Zealand’s Department of Conservation has produced a draft Biodiversity Strategy,  which is a national strategy applying the same principles as the regionally based SNAs, and very similar in scope to the NPSIB.  The strategy demands the ongoing expansion of reserved land and/or  land zoned for rewilding: this will be achieved by increased ‘tools’ (regulations)  to facilitate taking of private land or limiting the use of private land.

DOC’s vision for New Zealand by 2070

‘Our species, habitats and ecosystems (especially those that are currently rare
and threatened) are increasing, not declining, in number and extent, across
private as well as public land and in the sea’

Expansion of biodiversity areas – restoring biodiversity

The strategy aims to ‘restore biodiversity’ (p. 20), without defining what is meant by this goal decision.  At the extreme, of course, all human inhabitants would depart, leaving New Zealand to revert to the avian paradise it once was.  The Agenda 21 compromise is penning human beings in high-density cities, leaving most of the country zoned for ‘biodiversity’.

What is planned is ‘a complete network of biodiversity hubs across New Zealand […].  As with the SNAs, these will be connected by corridors: ‘Eco systems will be connected from the mountain tops to the ocean depths’.  The hubs will be protected by buffer zones to allow expansion.

The Strategy reiterates the need for the government to have access to private land:

Biodiversity is core to all decisions about land and water management, including on private land’;  ‘private landowners […] are a crucial part of the system’; ‘Implement a consistent national approach to rates relief for covenanted and other protected private land’.

The end of suburbs and small towns as we know them

The draft emphasises the New Zealand love of ‘nature’: ‘Nature in Aotearoa is healthy, abundant, and thriving.  Current and future generations connect with nature, restore it and are restored by it.’ While there is a comprehensive list of outdoor activities such as sport and tramping, a notable omission is the home garden, though this provides the greatest access to nature for New Zealanders over their lifetime.  The words ‘garden’ and ‘suburb’ occur neither in the Biodiversity Strategy nor the Statement on Indigenous Biodiversity.  New Zealand is described in the Strategy as an urbanised society:

  New Zealand is one of the most urbanised countries in the world.  There is significant opportunity to restore nature in cities and integrate it into urban planning, which will, in turn, help reconnect urban dwellers with nature. P. 52

This falsely conveys an impression of a people living in high density cities like Singapore, nothing like New Zealand cities with their preponderance of single-use dwellings and private yards.

The language and goals of the draft Strategy echo those of the American Wildlands Project, which aims to turn 50% of the United States into reserve land largely off-limits for human beings, connected by corridors to allow bison to roam the continent, and with large buffer zones (exposure of the Wildlands Project led to the United States refusing to ratify the Convention on Biological Diversity).

Department of Conservation Empire Building

Biodiversity should be ‘core to all decisions about land and water management’. To enforce this, and to facilitate taking or imposing restrictions on private land,  more powers need to be given to local and central government.  There are repeated references to the need for improved ‘legal and regulatory frameworks’ .

‘A mix of regulatory and non-regulatory tools should be used to achieve the best outcome, recognising that incentives, regulatory guidance and backstops are important elements of an effective response.’ (p. 29)

As a consequence the Department of Conservation will be involved in all decisions involving land and water use.

The Urban Development Bill

‘Objective of Bill is to better co-ordinate use of land, infrastructure, and public assets
to maximise public benefit from complex urban development projects’

In the past private property in New Zealand has only been seized for essential public works such as roading.  The Urban Development Bill gives the housing authority Kāinga Ora sweeping powers to force the acquisition of private property on behalf of developers.

‘Kāinga Ora will have land acquisition and transfer powers when undertaking any urban development […] The Bill has safeguards in place to ensure that the use of land acquisition powers strikes an appropriate balance between the need to meet urban development outcomes and the need to maintain certainty of property rights.’

Under this legislation, anyone with a home and garden is vulnerable and insecure.  In America, authorities can come to arrangements with developers, whereby property owners are forced to sell out and make way for private economic development when officials decide it would benefit the public, even if the property is not blighted and the new project’s success is not guaranteed.  This will certainly happen in New Zealand if  government measures to undermine land rights are permitted to proceed.  See Kelo v. City of New London Ten Years Later

‘Climate Change’ and The Threat to Coastal Development Property Rights

‘Draconian policy […] is destroying coastal communities on the back of projections which are basically lies.‘ (Mark Windows, Sea Level Expert V Climate Lies Destroying Communities, 0:10)

The most reliable sea rise gauges world-wide indicate an average global rise of 1-2mm per annum, and not accelerating.  See, for example, Wismar, Germany data, that shows a long-term trend of 1.4mm with no acceleration; an analysis of the 225 tide stations more than 50 years old,  which gave an average of 1.4mm pa;  an analysis of the 212 tide gauges with 60 years of recorded data in 2014, of which the most common SLR was +1.25 mm/year in 37 tide gauges.  Members of the School of Surveying, Otago University, and GNS NZ  found  an average annual sea level rise of 0.9 mm over four main NZ centres, once subsidence is taken into account

Coastal property is now under threat of rezoning purely on the basis of extravagant claims of global sea-rise.  Dr David Kear, former Director-General of New Zealand’s Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, noted that the Ohope Council declared a landwards inundation at Ohope Beach, contrary to local advice and the conclusions of their own consultants.  Kear concluded that councils seem to feel that (unknown) higher authorities insist that they must ignore evidence that supports accretion.

Despite all the factual evidence to the contrary, Wellington local authorities, as well as the corporate media, are projecting sea rise of several metres within a short time: according to one report, the Lower Hutt suburb of Petone could be swallowed up by sea rise in just 80 years.

In the United Kingdom, over 50 villages on the Welsh coast are facing their demise, not because of rising seas, but because of rezoning on the basis of alarmist claims.  Not untypical is ‘Some of Wales’ major coastal towns and cities could be underwater in the next 100 years, experts warn’; apparently sea rise ‘could be at least 6 metres’.  ‘Experts’ are a consortium of climate scientists and journalists called Climate Central, funded according to Sourcewatch by a number of impressive bodies such as Google, the David and Lucille Packard Foundation, NASA, the Turner Foundation and certainly by the Rockefeller Foundation, founder of the global warming movment.  World-renowned sea level authority such as Nils Axel-Mörner has declared the claims to be completely unfounded, and some Welsh villages are suing the  UK government over their alarmism.

Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration

The NZ Government is signatory to the UN’s Global Compact on Migration, designed in fact to facilitate migration.  The reasons for supporting or opposing the mass movement of people are complex.  It should be pointed out, however, that aside from the pressure on housing that is created by a large number of arrivals from overseas, their presence is likely to favour urbanisation and undermine the tradition of home ownership.

Maori Aspirations:

‘Many iwi, hapū and whānau have significant aspirations to play a greater role in managing biodiversity on public and private land’.  ‘[by 2020] Mana whenua feel that they can genuinely practice their role as kaitiaki [guardianship]’.  (Biodiversity Strategy)

In all the proposed legislation – the Statement on Indigenous Biodiversity, the Biodiversity Strategy, Urban Development Bill – the demand for an increasing role for iwi is reiterated time and again, but not explained.  It is unclear what the role of kaitiaki entails, whether the proposals flag Maori having a greater say over (non-Maori) private land usage, or its compulsory acquisition, or they are paving the way for the Treaty of Waitangi being amended to cover private land, as has been mooted recently.

The Role of the United Nations

The main focus of Agenda 21 is to take control of the land because once they do that, they can control any human activity (Lucille Femine, Agenda 21 Revealed)

The inspiration for the assault on private property comes not from a movement within New Zealand but from policies developed by the United Nations bureaucracy.  At present, the only legal authority for SNAs and the new policies regarding claiming private land for ‘biodiversity’ is the UN’s Convention on Biological Diversity 1992.

The Convention on Biological Diversity

Signatory countries, regardless of their different circumstances, agree ‘as far as possible’ to:

(a) Establish a system of protected areas or areas where special measures need to be taken to conserve biological diversity;

[…]

(e) Promote environmentally sound and sustainable development in areas adjacent to protected areas with a view to furthering protection of these areas;
(f) Rehabilitate and restore degraded ecosystems and promote the recovery of threatened species;

The Convention thus commits signatory countries to open-ended reversion of private land to its ‘original’ state.

As Michael Coffman (Agenda 21 Wildlands Project) points out, state control over private property has been central to every international treaty since the 1970s.  One of the most explicit UN position statements on private land is contained in the Official Report of the United Nations Conference on Human Settlements 1976, also known as Habitat 1:

Land, because of its unique nature and the crucial role it plays in human settlements, cannot be treated as an ordinary asset, controlled by individuals and subject to the pressures and inefficiencies of the market. Private land ownership is also a principal instrument of accumulation and concentration of wealth and therefore contributes to social injustice; if unchecked, it may become a major obstacle in the planning and implementation of development schemes. Social justice, urban renewal and development, the provision of decent dwellings and healthy conditions for the people can only be achieved if land is used in the interests of society as a whole.

Public control of land use is therefore indispensable to its protection as an asset and the achievement of the long-term objectives of human settlement policies and strategies.

Agenda 21

Agenda 21 is a non-binding action plan which was presented for signature, along with the Convention on Biological Diversity, at the Rio Earth Summit 1992. The document Agenda 21 serves as the text for the UN’s Agenda 2030 and its ‘Sustainable Development Goals’.   Agenda 21 proposes the expansion of government control over all areas of life, on the basis of the two prongs of environmentalism promoted by the elite foundations, ie ‘biodiversity’ and ‘climate’.   Agenda 21 is closely linked to the elite globalist movement, is sponsored by the mega-corporations, and has been referred to variously as Marxist, fascist, totalitarian and Orwellian.

A number of local authority networking platforms have been founded and funded by Rockefeller and other elite foundations specifically for the purpose of promoting Agenda 21, including ICLEI and 100 Resilient Cities, the latter founded by David Rockefeller himself.  Because of the threat they present to private landowners, more than half of American states have introduced legislation to the implementation of policies or recommendations emanating from Agenda 21, ICLEI, or even the United Nations, with varying results.

See also: Agenda 21 and How it Plays Out, and Ryan Cristian, Agenda 2030 (aka New World Order) Decrypted, which includes an analysis of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

The Way Forward

The establishment of SNAs shows that decisions are already being implemented which are not based on New Zealand legislation and New Zealand values but are guided by undeclared forces.  Government measures now seeks to legitimise public control or purchase of private property, which will mean that nobody can feel secure in their own home.

It is clear that the only way to protect traditional private property rights is to pass specific legislation to that end, including amending (or repealing) the RMA.

Consideration should also be given to banning local authority networking platforms such as ICLEI, whose raison d’etre is the promotion of Agenda 21 and the undermining of what New Zealand sees as essential values.

At the very least, there should be proper debate in New Zealand over whether they accept policies that place all non-human nature above humanity, and whether they accept the scenario that native fauna should enjoy unlimited space and unlimited rights while those of human beings must be severely curtailed.